Photoshop Image Size > Resolution Wrong (?)

Thanks again to everyone who helped out. I've marked Test Screen Name  as the correct answer, but I know there were a few people here who did some digging as well.

Though the source of the two issues have been identified, I'm still wondering why the drag&drop sizes the image to 278x185 specifically inside a 72 ppi document. Conrad C  was able to reproduce this exact situation following the same steps and gave a pretty good educated guess as to why, but just wondering if anyone here can/has figured it out.

Again, the post itself is marked as answered, but I'm just wanting to understand the WHY of the 278x185 dimensions if anyone understands it. Thanks again everyone

We are using different tools. I used a command line tool called jpegdump I think, my own experience, and other things, and looking in a binary editor. This does seem to explain the drag & drop behaviour too.

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Test+Screen+Name

SuperMerlin

Stephen_A_Marsh

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Conrad+C

Thanks everyone for helping out. Where are you seeing this info displayed? I tried the Photoshop > File > File Info > Raw Data section, the app SetEXIFData, and the app PhotoME and could not find this data.

Does this doubling of resolution info account for the odd drag and drop behavior as well?

Anyone have any idea as to why the dragged file is coming into Photoshop @ 278 x 185?

Conrad C had one idea...

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Conrad+C  wrote ... If you divide 300/72, you get almost 4.2, which is close to the same scale factor that you get if you divide 1160 by 278. But what really shows this is happening is if you create another 1160 x 772 Photoshop document, but this time set the resolution to 300 ppi instead of 72 ppi. This time, when you place the downloaded image, it fills the space exactly and is reported as 1160 x 772, and I think it's because both are seen as 300 ppi.

I believe it was introduced in 3.0 and is a format identifier not a software version. Still in use in CC 2017.  

I tried this myself and saw everything reported. I think I have a few ideas.

I used the image

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0278/7289/products/Woodcut7.jpg

which is, as you say, is 1160 x 772 pixels, and is reported as 72 ppi by the same applications you tried, but opens directly into Photoshop as 300 ppi. I'm not sure why Photoshop opens it as 300 ppi, because if the image included 300 ppi metadata, all applications should have reported that. It sounds like it may not have resolution metadata, but then I'm used to Photoshop defaulting to 72 ppi in that case. So there's a mystery there.

I also saw that dragging and dropping into Photoshop would import at 278 x 185 px (into a 1160 x 772, 72 ppi document), but in recent versions of Photoshop CC that does not mean you lose any pixels, because the default drag-and-drop behavior is to import the image file as an embedded Smart Object; the Properties and Layers panel should indicate this. That means all the pixels are there, but the image has been scaled down. You can see this by double-clicking the layer; as a Smart Object it should open into its own 1160 x 772 document. If you close that, and back in the main document you scale up the embedded 278 x 185 px Smart Object to 1160 x 772 px, you will find that there are no jaggies, because it was not a thumbnail, it was a Smart Object containing the entire resolution of the placed image but scaled down.

Now, I thought scaling on import wouldn't happen if the "Resize Image During Place" preference was turned off, but it happens. Then I had the idea that maybe Photoshop sees the incoming image at 300 ppi, and like InDesign, tries to reconcile the resolution difference with the 72 ppi document to make their physical sizes consistent (both programs import it at 3.86 by 2.57 inches, its physical size at 300 ppi). If you divide 300/72, you get almost 4.2, which is close to the same scale factor that you get if you divide 1160 by 278. But what really shows this is happening is if you create another 1160 x 772 Photoshop document, but this time set the resolution to 300 ppi instead of 72 ppi. This time, when you place the downloaded image, it fills the space exactly and is reported as 1160 x 772, and I think it's because both are seen as 300 ppi.

So, you didn't lose any pixels, and the small size is due to ppi differences between the Photoshop document and the placed (embedded Smart Object) image.

https://forums.adobe.com/people/D+Fosse  wrote It sounds like you're getting the thumbnail, not the original image (don't know how this works in Mac). Drag and drop is always an unpredictable way to do things. Open the original properly.

I doubt this has much to do with it. On the Mac, when you drag and drop from any application where the dragged object represents an entire file, it's pretty reliable. You can drag from the Finder, Bridge, Lightroom, or other similar file browsers, and drop in Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere, After Effects, and so on, and when you inspect how the receiving program reports the dropped file, it's a fully valid link reference to the document in the file system. In other words, on the Mac, drag-and-drop at the file level is 100% equal to using the File > Place or File > Import commands in Adobe applications. However, I have run into situations in Windows where using drag and drop this way didn't work as well.

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Mykill+G  wrote

Drag and drop the image from Finder... its waaaay smaller. (278x185).

It sounds like you're getting the thumbnail, not the original image (don't know how this works in Mac). Drag and drop is always an unpredictable way to do things. Open the original properly.

Also, a downloaded image may be damaged in many ways. Open it and resave it.

Pixels per inch (ppi) is just metadata, which may be missing or not read properly by the application. In that case the application opens with a default ppi value, and this may vary from app to app. Most use 72, but some use 96 or any other value.

One possibility is that it has no resolution in the file and so you see different app’s different defaults. What file format is this image? If it’s Online can you share a link.

Unrelated, when I tried to edit a few spelling mistakes 2 minutes after posting, after making the corrections and hitting "Post", it asked me for my name and email, which I entered, but was then told "You do not have permission to update or edit this content". You are killing me, Adobe.